Cheryl Cole has revealed how having malaria made her reassess her life.

The Girls Aloud singer and former X Factor judge admitted that she even started writing a will following her near-fatal brush with the disease, after a trip to Tanzania with dancer Derek Hough in 2010.

The star opens up in her autobiography Cheryl: My Story, which is being serialised in the Sun.

"Now I feel sure I had it for a reason. It's almost as if it was God's way of forcing me to stop and get off the roller coaster ride my life had become. It made me take a good look at myself - and that's what I've done," she said.

Cheryl, who was diagnosed with the worst strain of malaria, falciparum, decided to pen her will after being told by a nurse that death was a possibility.

"I can clearly remember asking the nurse if I was dying - and feeling relieved when she said, 'It's a possibility'. 'Make this end', I thought. I just had nothing left," she recalled.

"Afterwards I told mam: 'I'm gonna write me will. Bring paper. I need to tell you what to do'. I was matter of fact. I was so over it by now - too tired to take any more."

As the 29-year-old recovered from the disease, she realised she wanted to change her life.

She continued: "I'd had enough. I wanted to be floating around on the carousel, not watching my knuckles turn white on the roller coaster. I just had to work out how to change my life."